THE CARING PROFESSIONS

A friend of mine comes to stay. She says "I want to retrain." She is a production manager.
"Oh?"
"Yes. I feel I need to move into a caring profession."
"But you're already in a caring profession."
"Haha. I don't think making soap is a caring profession. No one would see it that way."
"I might. But what would you be doing in a caring profession that you're not doing as a production manager?"
"I'd be making a real difference to people's lives."
"And you don't now?"
"No."

I recalled a story she had told me some time ago. She had a production worker - let's call him Mike. He was one of the best workers she had. After he had been working at the plant for some time, she noticed that he seemed downcast, not himself. Asking around tactfully, she soon discovered the reason. He was being bullied by some other workers who were threatening to reveal to the boss - my friend - something they had somehow discovered. The secret was that Mike had been to prison - not something discovered in the recruitment process.
My friend acted decisively, calling Mike into her office. He was clearly terrified.
"I hear the rumour mill is grinding out some stuff about you Mike?"
"Ah..."
"I hear that you have a criminal record. Is that true?
Mike was close to tears. "Yes. It is."
"Ok," said my friend. "Here's what we're going to do. Nothing. I'm glad you told me as now I know, and that means that anyone threatening to grass you up can come straight to me, as I know about it anyway. You're one of my best workers. I don't want to lose you." Mike, predictably, continued to be one of her best and most loyal factory workers.

"You don't make a difference to peoples' lives?" I asked. "What about Mike?"
"Well.............. yes."

You don't have to be in a caring profession to care about people. You can run a burger van and do it. You can work on the checkout at Tesco and do it. In fact, you can illuminate (I think that is the right word) any job by merely seeing it as a context for loving. So that your real job becomes loving people, giving them a loving level of care, and your paid job is just the context - the setting.

Butcher, baker, candlestick maker.
Consultant, coach, facilitator.